The Story of the Awen
by jamdragon9
Summary: The substance is the most fragile thing this Earth contains. In one freak accident it can be either reconstructed or annihilated. Turns out, Jam is going to find this out the hard way. His world is turned upside down once he gains the knowledge of something that could cause the universe to be completely obliterated.
1. Discovery

The night was dark. There were too many clouds for the moon to have any chance of peeking through. A man walking through the woods was the only disturbance. One of his hands was perched on the small of his back, palm facing outward, and the other was covering his mouth slightly as he walked. He paid no attention to the crunching leaves underfoot; he was too deep in thought. Normally the man wouldn't be so careless in paying attention, but even if something wanted to hurt him it probably wouldn't see him. His clothes were dark, save for his white undershirt and gloves.

The man wore a black overcoat with tails, black shoes and a black tie, dark gray vest, gray pants and his slicked-back hair was jet black as well. His hair was softly curled upward toward the tips. Bright gray-green eyes and a kind, fair smile complemented his face. As Jam Crincklecut walked along, he thought about Erec Rex.

The boy, aside from King Piter, was Jam's best friend. Jam would do anything for him, and had even accompanied him on a quest not too long ago in Otherness against monsters. He was basically fighting against friends, for the butler had old family ties in Alypium and Aorth; the "monsters" being fought against. The battle was over now and Jam felt that he needed a little break from everything. So, after Erec Rex went back to live with his family for a while, Jam took the opportunity to walk in the woods of Smoolie, Otherness. It was the most beautiful place in the Kingdom of the Keepers.

A cool breeze blew some of Jam's hair around his face. He brushed it aside when he smelled something weird. It smelled like a mix of carrion and milk left out to sit for a few days. Curious, Jam made his way toward where the smell was coming from. He scrunched up his nose as he came nearer. It was coming from a tunnel in the bushes. Jam suddenly realized that the smell had led him out of Smoolie. He was now somewhere unknown in Otherness. Looking around he saw that everything was...dead. Wherever he was it was dark, gloomy and truly unnerving. The trees were thick and Jam realized he couldn't see three feet ahead of him because of the heavy fog that lay slightly above the ground. Anything could jump out at him here. Jam looked behind him, longing for the comfort Smoolie had brought him, but curiosity about his earlier task overcame him once more. Looking up, he shivered, but not from cold. Over the brush he had spotted where the scent was coming from.

Jam just about screamed and his jaw dropped as he gave an inhuman, shuddering gasp. He was staring at a dead mountain lion. But it wasn't just dead. It was _mutilated_. As Jam looked closer, he saw that the cat's eyes were glassy and crazed. It's stomach was gutted out which was causing the wildcat to lay in it's own blood. This cat had died from rabies; that much was obvious. That was where the carrion scent had come from, but what about the milky part of the smell?

Jam didn't want to know. He turned on his heels and sprinted back the way he had come. Arriving again in Smoolie, he noted that the place no longer looked as inviting to him. He kept seeing the rabid animal's eyes everywhere he looked. It haunted him. He wanted to forget, but it wasn't easy after seeing the look of death. Reaching the Port-O-Door he had come through, he slipped back into Alypium after tapping it on the map.

There was an eerie silence in Jam's head. Everyone around him was bustling and making noise but he heard nothing. He kept his eyes straight ahead and looked at no one. It was out of the ordinary for him to act like this. The ground seemed slanted all of a sudden as Jam felt that inhumane smell hit him again. It rose up to meet him and Jam's head slammed on asphalt as he succumbed to a dead faint. Then there was black.


	2. Nightmare

Jam tore a knife that was more of a dagger out of an inside pocket of his tuxedo coat. It was sharp and jagged. Moments like this made Jam glad that his inborn gift was always being prepared. He was running after someone. Up ahead his victim, a boy who's red-brown hair was straight in front and curly in back, tripped on a jutting tree root.

"Aaagh!" he cried as his elbow struck rock.

Behind him, Jam ran up, screamed in pure fury, and brought the knife down hard.

Jam awoke screaming bloody murder. He stopped when his eyes snapped open so wide that they hurt. His mouth was still slightly open. Tears started running down his face. Why had he dreamed that?

Jam would never hurt Erec, let alone kill him! And the knife...Jam made a mental note to get rid of it. He might have just had only a nightmare, but it was frighteningly real. He had never felt such rage in a dream ever.

He looked up and felt heat rise in his face. Everyone was staring at him.

"It was a nightmare," he said in his English accent, more trying to reassure himself than the crowd. "I am fine."

The people dispersed. Clearing his throat, embarrassed, he slowly got up but had to stop as dizziness struck him. Jam held his head tightly. He hadn't his that hard, had he? As the lightheaded feeling slowly diminished, he brought his hand down and gasped in shock. His white glove was stained red. Feeling his head once more, he noticed that his hair was damp. How was it even possible that he had hit his head hard enough to cause it to start bleeding?

Jam managed to regain balance and clear his throat once again. He walked back toward the castle, his legs suffering from pins and needles with each step.

"...ahh...ow...gah..." he grunted.

His steps were uneven until blood started flowing normally again. Jam stopped at a fountain, sat on the edge by the water, and slouched his back. He clutched his now pounding head, exhaling a little with each throb of agony.

He earned some concerned looks but payed them no attention. Someone walked up to him and stopped.

"Jam?"


	3. The Girl

Jam looked up, hands still on his head. He saw a girl with long, brown hair looking at him. She looked slightly afraid. It was the king's daughter, Bethany. She wasn't actually his daughter but she had no one else. So King Piter had taken her as his own.

"Jam are you OK?" Bethany asked again.

"Uhhh..." Jam started. "...yes. Fine, modom. I'm fine."

"Well, you sure don't look fine!" Bethany retorted. Then she peered closer. "Jam!" she shrieked. "Your head's bleeding!"

"How bad?"

Bethany put her hand on Jam's shoulder. "Bad...here," She helped Jam to his feet. He was wobbly and exhaled and grunted with pain. He grabbed his head tightly again and allowed Bethany to lead him away. They stopped when Jam said he needed to sit down again.

"Your head's not really bleeding as much," Bethany said encouragingly. "You look better. I don't think you need the hospital anymore."

"Thank you modom...for everything," replied Jam.

"You'd do it for me, big guy. I would still get your head checked out if I were you, though," said Bethany.

Jam just smiled warmly. "Alright, I will. I suppose I should go back to work afterward, huh?"

"Yeah, that would probably be best," agreed the girl. "Just don't overwork yourself."

Jam watched as Bethany wished him luck and flounced off. His head was no longer bleeding, thankfully, but it still throbbed slightly. Sighing, he got up and slowly made his way back to the castle. The rest of the day passed uneventfully.

Then night arrived.


	4. Attack

Let me start this off with a thing or two about nightmares. Nightmares are strange things. They can be only a picture or a scene in your mind that haunts you for a second or two, or it can seem to go on for eternity and stay with you for what feels to be forever. It is rare for someone to feel strong emotion in a dream or nightmare and even more rare to wake up feeling the same way. Whenever such occurrences arise, however, they can be extreme and cause the one feeling such things to go mad. The person will want to fix the problem any way they can. They will want to end their own suffering, even if it means causing someone else to suffer for them.

Jam had never felt such fury before even when he was awake. It seemed so magnified when he was experiencing his nightmare after he had split his head on the pavement. As he made his way into bed, he pulled up the covers and trembled slightly with fear. He was ashamed of himself. He was cowering like a toddler. Jam found himself withing his mother was still alive and that she was with him now. It wasn't the first time, either.

Everywhere Jam looked he saw glassy eyes, jagged knives, blood and the look of Erec's face before Jam had stabbed him. It had been full of sheer terror and pleading. Jam quickly shut his eyes but that only made everything worse. At least when his eyes were open he was focusing on something. When Jam closed his eyes, his imagination spiraled out of control and he saw the rabid mountain cat, dead and still torn apart, running full speed for him. It's mouth hung slightly open and it's teeth showed. It's ripped stomach dragged on the ground.

That was when the realization hit Jam: the cat had torn itself apart in an attempt to end its own misery. It was basically suicidal. Slowly, Jam opened his eyes. Blinking a few times, he sat up. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he got up, threw on his overcoat and shoes and grabbed a shovel. He stopped only to look back at a photo he had of his mother.

After a few moments he tore his eyes away and the butler went to find another Port-O-Door. He found one somewhere in the outskirts of the castle territory and found Smoolie. He got as close as he could to where he had started out the previous day when the haunting had begun. Before going through, he took one more look at the castle. He thought of Bethany for some reason, asleep in her bed, no idea what was happening right now.

Gripping the shovel tightly, he timidly stepped out onto the soft grass. He was shaking, knowing what was to come. He retraced his steps back to the outcrop where the dead cat had been. Reaching the tunnel, Jam peered over it again.

There it was. If possible, it looked so much worse. The stomach tear was larger and the blood was now rotting along with everything else. Bones showed. Jam turned around, leaned over and threw up. Groaning, he wiped his mouth and slowly straightened. Resisting the urge to hurl again, he made his way cautiously through the shrubbery over to the cat.

Before he could get even 3/4ths of the way there, he was knocked over by what felt to be a brick. But bricks didn't have hands that were groping for Jam's throat. They didn't give inhuman growls. They didn't drip blood. This was no lynx. It was a person with cat features; a werecat.

"Take one more step," snarled the werecat. "and I'll personally tear...you...apart!"


	5. The Awen

"I did not mean any harm!" cried Jam desperately, terrified, pinned on the ground and unable to move.

The werecat didn't buy it. "I'm not the one holding the shovel!"

"I promise you!"

"That shovel looks pretty lethal, human!" The werecat lifted its passive hand-paw and brought it down hard on Jam's throat, cutting off his air supply. When it did so, Jam let out a sharp shriek and gasp. The werecat wasn't phased. The paw only pressed harder.

"Listen, butler! You will not be going anywhere near my brother. Being his brother myself and his guardian it is my duty to make sure his body is not disturbed while he makes his afterlife journey. I have worked too long and hard to get where I am now and I will not have it ruined by someone who thinks they're better than me!"

Jam was out of breath now. He took in one last gasp of any air he could force into his windpipe and shoved. He may not have looked like much but he was all muscle underneath. He used all the brute strength he had and threw the animal off. Jam rolled over and gasped and coughed violently. When he finally regained enough air, he stood and raised the shovel diagonal across his body. The werecat snarled at it. It had sprawled itself across the mountain lion's body.

"Don't come any nearer!"

"I need to bury him. It will help," Jam explained.

"It most certainly will not!" contradicted the werecat. He looked down at his brother. "He was killed in honor; protecting his family! He deserves much better than the sick dirt! Anyway, the spirits of the Earth will take him away. If Shear stays this way he will move on to be with the wind spirits. I must make sure this happens."

"Are there no other elements?" asked Jam, intrigued.

"No," murmured the werecat. "Not that anyone is absolutely sure of, no. If he joins the wind spirits, however, he will be in perfect harmony."

"If I may ask," continued Jam. "What exactly would happen if he went somewhere other than that?"

The werecat growled. "Sit."

Jam sat on a jutting tree root but stood up sharply as he was stabbed in a quite undesirable spot. He sat in a different space and felt his face go red as the werecat smirked.

"I'll spare you more embarrassment," continued the werecat. "There are five elements: air, earth, fire, water and spirit. All of them play a part in nature. When we die, we will either go to the earth or the sky. But there have been legends of cats and werecats who have traveled to the others. They all caused different changes. When you join the sky spirits, you create harmony for all. The earth spirits cause creations of terrible things.

"Bear in mind," the werecat said seriously. "honestly none of this applies to you directly, but it could damage you in the long run."

Jam nodded in understanding.

"No one really knows of what the other elements bring but it has been said that water brings beauty and fire brings sight. Not just better physical sight bit improved insight as well. The last, spirit, brings intense knowledge. The bearer will know absolutely everything."

Jam was intrigued. All the knowledge in the world sounded pretty good to him, not that he'd ever ask for it. How could any of these things be bad?

"But," the werecats went on. "if these elements were ever to be contained in a physical form, their powers would be reversed and magnified. Everything they did, they would do the complete opposite. Now I may call these elements, and that is the common name, but they have also been known to be called Awen. If Shear goes with the Earth element, there is a greater chance he will slowly upset balances of the Substance. If all elements were to be contained, the Substance would be upset and out of control.

"So you now see the severity of the situation. If you bury Shear, his spirit will only cause destruction faster. The natural balance would be disturbed and the world would fall into complete chaos!"

Jam understood now. He said so.

"One more thing," the werecat said. "if the elements were somehow restored after containment, they would again release their original effects...with one exception: earth. If that is released, good things will be created, not bad. No one knows why."

Jam was silent. He didn't know what to say.

"Are you still thinking of burying him?"

Jam quickly shook his head.

"Good."

"Hang on one minute, sir," said Jam.

The werecat looked up.

"If you are his brother then that means he is a werecat, also?"

"Yes."

"Then why is he a full cat form and you only a half-cat?"

"This is the form he died in. It was the most effective form of honor. He fought the enemy bravely."

"One more question," continued Jam.

"Mmm?"

"Who are you?"

"Who am I? Just a friend," replied the werecat simply.

The silence afterward was awkward. The moon was dark. Jam shivered but not from the cold. He felt Shear's spirit waiting...watching...

"I...I'd better be off," stated Jam, about to throw up again. He could barely take the stench much longer. He got up and the werecat said farewell. He was off as quickly as he could without seeming impolite as possible. After he got past the wall of bushes, Jam looked back.

The werecat was gone.

Jam turned around and headed back home. Before he could take 3 steps he clutched his stomach and fell to his knees. Bending at the waist, he threw up once again.


	6. Blinding Light

Jam couldn't sleep for the second night in a row no matter how hard he tried. He was suffering from extreme paranoia. What if someone somehow contained the Awen? What would happen then? Jam knew he was being foolish but he honestly was afraid. Too much had gone on lately for him not to be. He looked at his clock: 5:30 AM. Jam sighed.

"Time to get up anyway, I suppose." He slowly got up and hobbled to where his coat was hung. He noticed that he had slept in his tux. He groaned again, feeling gross. He shrugged on his coat and, taking a small step, tripped over something and landed nose-first on the hard floor with a sharp thud.

"Ow..." he whimpered, holding his nose.

Bringing his hand away, he saw fresh blood.

"Haven't I lost enough blood already?" he moaned to himself.

The last thing Jam wanted or needed was a bloody nose. He slowly got up and walked slowly this time, to where his shoes were. He happened to turn and look out the window. What he saw confused him. He'd happened to look out his window the same moment that a soft green light flashed in the clouds.

"Odd..." he murmured quietly.

Jam walked softly to the window and opened it, peering out. People were going with their lives and he seemed to be the only one who had noticed the flash. He looked up again. Doing so was possibly the worst mistake Jam ever made.

At the moment he looked up, the green flash was seen again, but this time it was blinding. Jam had to shut his eyes tightly. He felt himself be thrown against the back wall of his room. His back crashed halfway through the wall, leaving a deep pent. He fell, hard, onto the floor in a crumpled heap. Jam had landed on his arm at an awkward angle. He thought he could hear the sickening crack of bone and his screaming. But that was the really strange thing: Jam couldn't hear anything. Nothing. The only thing he heard was a muffled cannon noise when the green explosion happened. Other than that, nothing. It was a silent explosion. There was nothing at all.

The last thing Jam saw that night was a shape that looked like a girl bending over him.


	7. Disaster at Hand

Bethany awoke to a green light in her bedroom. She thought this to be exceedingly strange. Green lights were definitely not normal, even in Alypium.

"Hmm..."

The light disappeared and she got up out of bed and decided to investigate. She looked out her window and saw no one on the streets. Where was everyone? Usually there were at least a few people roaming around at night, but now there was absolutely no one. Did anyone else see the flash? She walked outside and quickly recoiled as she set foot on the pavement. It was white-hot.

"Huh?"

"Did you see it, too?"

Bethany turned to see another teenager poking his head through a door.

"The green light?"

"Ahh..." he gasped. "So I'm not the only one! For a few seconds I'd thought I'd lost my mind! Do you know what that was?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Well," he went on, whispering quietly. He then said something inaudible.

"What?"

He said it again, just as quietly.

"You will have to speak up, dude," said Bethany. "I can't hear you."

"I heard my mama talking about it," the boy said, a little louder. "I wasn't supposed to know. Supposedly it was adult stuff that I wouldn't understand. I wasn't supposed to hear but I'm a very good eavesdropper. I don't want to speak loudly in case someone hears."

"Well-"

"Awen!" the boy whisper-cried.

"What?"

"The five Awen!" he whispered again. "Apparently they were just contained. I don't know what the heck that means but it can't be good seeing as it made the ground burning hot."

"You noticed that, too?"

"Yup."

"What's your name?"

The boy looked around nervously. "Confidential. I can't let anyone know I told you this! Don't tell anyone!"

"I won't," promised Bethany.

"Good night then, I guess," he said.

"Good night."

Bethany saw the boy look upward at the moon before retreating to his home. Bethany looked up, too. The moon looked perfectly normal.

"Maybe Jam will know what's going on. He knows almost everything," she told herself.

She walked through the labyrinth of hallways and stairs until she reached the west wing. This is where her room was about to be transferred in a few weeks. She was pretty excited, for she would be closer to King Piter. She reached Jam's room and knocked.

"Jam?" she whispered.

No answer.

She tried the doorknob. It was unlocked so she pushed it open.

"Huh?"

The room looked like a mini-nuclear bomb field. The window had a huge crack in it and there was a gigantic dent in the wall. It was what was underneath the dent that scared her. Jam was lying there, unconscious, crumpled on the ground with his coat strewn all over him, barely breathing.

Bethany quickly managed to lift him, for he was surprisingly light, and took him to the hospital.

...

"Uhh...wha?"

Jam painfully lifted his head and heard an audible sigh of relief.

"You're alive," said Bethany.

"What happened?" asked Jam. "All I remember was a blinding green light."

"Yeah, I saw that too," replied Bethany.

"Do you know what it was, modom?"

"Well," she said hesitantly. "I heard some rumors."

"Rumors?"

"Something about something being, like, secured."

"What things?"

"I think they're called Awen."


End file.
